Jardin Au Fou is the second solo album by German keyboardist Hans-Joachim Roedelius, best known for his work with Cluster

Cluster (band)

Cluster is a German experimental musical group who influenced the development of contemporary popular electronic and ambient music. They have recorded albums in a wide variety of styles ranging from experimental music to progressive rock, all of which had an avant-garde edge. Cluster has been...

. The title is French for "Garden of Madness".

Jardin Au Fou was recorded from April through July, 1978 at Paragon Studios

Paragon Studios

Paragon Studios is a computer game developer, and wholly owned subsidiary of NCsoft. Founded in November 2007 as NCsoft NorCal, the studio's remit was to further develop the City of Heroes and City of Villains franchises following the acquisition of the titles by NCsoft from Cryptic Studios...

 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It was produced by former Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...

 member Peter Baumann

Peter Baumann

Peter Baumann formed the core line-up of the German electronic group Tangerine Dream with Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke in 1971. While touring with the band, Baumann composed his first solo album in 1976...

 and released by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 label Egg in 1979. Jardin Au Fou was the only early Roedelius album not to be released by Sky Records

Sky Records

Sky Records was a Hamburg, Germany based independent record label specializing in Krautrock/Kosmische Musik and electronic music. Some of their releases could be classified as progressive rock or art rock, experimental music, industrial, ambient, or New Age...

. The original release included 10 tracks but the final short piece, "Final", was left off the track listing on the original album cover.

Jardin Au Fou was reissued on CD in 1998 by the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese Captain Trip label. The reissued version added six bonus tracks which nearly doubled the length of the album. Three of the new tracks are remixes of material on the original recording while three others are newly released. The new tracks are very much in the style of the original album. The remixes, remastering of the original material, and production of the reissue is credited to Eric Spitzer-Martin and was done at The Hitbox in Altenburg

Altenburg, Lower Austria

Altenburg is a municipality in the district of Horn in Lower Austria, Austria....

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

Mike Ezzo, who reviewed the album for Groove Unlimited, writes, in part:

"...'Jardin au Fou' was where he cemented that particularly light-hearted and wistful Roedelius sound. Not a garden of madness, rather a garden of whimsy and odd delight, it is simple melodious keyboard music whose character is imbued with unexpected chord progressions that don't resolve in traditional ways, a naive rhythmic sense, and melodic lines that go where you least expect. One gets the feeling that Roedelius had envisioned the scenery of a park on a Sunday afternoon in Paris, or some kind of music from a traveling circus show, when the inspiration for this recording struck him."

Jardin Au Fou was the first of a series of albums where Roedelius ventured firmly into ambient or new age music.

The French record label Jardin Au Fou named themselves after the Roedelius album.

Track listing

1. "Fou Fou" - 3:59
2. "Toujours" - 2:59
3. "Rue Fortune" - 2:23
4. "Balsam" - 2:18
5. "Café Central" - 3:40
6. "Le Jardin" 4:30
7. "Gloria Dolores" - 4:14
8. "Étoiles" 3:55
9. "Schöne Welt" - 4:48
10. "Final" - 0:49

Bonus tracks on 1998 reissue:

11. "Tempera" - 7:25

12. "Étoiles II (remix)" - 3:53

13. "Übers Feld" - 5:40

14. "Le Jardin II (remix)" - 5:03

15. "Mittsommer" - 6:01

16. "Rue Fortune II (remix)" - 2:21

Personnel

• Hans-Joachim Roedelius - synthesizer, keyboards
• Schagzerig Greene - cello, keyboards
• Ulrike Lai - cello
• Wolfgang Diumshede - flute
• Hans Brandeis - guitar